The Unmaking (35 page)

She was so changed from those days. She was not that girl anymore.

She spread her arms wide and the water trembled when she
spoke. Ravens screamed in the wood behind them.

“My power spans the worlds and that between the worlds, my power spans the skies and seas of Tian Di, my power is undivided. Where I walk is the ground and what I speak is the truth. The tide will come to me when I beckon, the moon will sink when I point to the horizon. Here I demand a bridge, here where I stand, here I call upon the Boatman of the Crossing, passage to be mine.”

The Boatman came slowly into view.

“Welcome, Sorceress,” he said.

Eliza found herself, for the first time, looking into his eyes. She understood then that he was not a being like other beings in the worlds. He was not of the worlds. He was timeless, deathless, lifeless. He was a being like that little boy in the tree – a Guardian who maintained the limits of the worlds. But this was one boundary she was permitted to cross, one Guardian she could command, and he would obey her. He saw her recognition and smiled his ghastly smile. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

The dragons sat, bright and hulking, at the centre of the deck. Eliza and Uri Mon Lil sat aft, watching the hissing sea race by. Eliza was bone-weary, longing for sleep, but she was afraid that if she slept she would wake up without this new power that coursed through her, that she would wake up just Eliza again and not be up to the thing she had to do. She clutched the Vindensphere in her lap. She would not use it yet. She could not waste any of her strength.

“Quite an adventure,” Uri Mon Lil commented once he had read through his notes and added the fact that they were returning to Tian Xia. “It says here that you are a Sorceress.”

“True,” she said, for the first time in her life feeling it to be so.

“And that our relationship is...undetermined.” He looked at her inquiringly.

“That’s an old entry,” she said, and laughed for the first time in days. “You’d better change that to friend.”

Uri Mon Lil beamed at her. “I
thought
so,” he said.

~~~

Nia and Malferio stood on a red-black lava field that crumbled into a grey sea. Behind them, dark peaks spat flame. He stumbled back on the uneven stones, but for every step back he took, she took one forward, maintaining their proximity. His wrists were still bound with silver.

“You can’t kill me,” he snarled. “Your life depends on mine. Whatever you do to me, you must leave me alive, and one day I will have
my
revenge. Bear that in mind, Nia. Whatever you do to me one day will be showered back upon you tenfold, I swear by the Ancients!”

“Yes, the Ancients,” said Nia. “Swear by them if you want to. They don’t care for you, Malferio, nor for any of us. They did not stop me from beheading their Oracle and they will lend no power to your pleas for mercy. That is what you’re begging for, really, isn’t it? That I will show some mercy?”

After a long silence, Malferio tried to scream a Curse. But it perished in his mouth, leaving him with aching teeth and a burnt tongue. Nia stepped towards him.

“Go on, beg. It would please me, I think.”

“I can give you anything,” Malferio said hollowly, his eyes bright with hate. “Name it.”

“You can give me
nothing
,” hissed Nia, pushing him down on his knees before her. “You are not a king any longer, Malferio. I wear your blood, your immortality, and there is nothing I want from you except to bring about your absolute defeat and degradation. To grovel before me will be your final gift to me. Crawl.”

Malferio fell flat on his belly, possessed by something he could not resist, and writhed on the ground.

“I will be your end, Nia,” he gasped out. “Remember that. You will suffer for this. All who took part will suffer for this. I will be your end!”

“Hush now,” said Nia. “I wonder how many beings you have Cursed in your day? What do you think? It would be impossible to count, I imagine. I learned Curses from the Faeries, among other things. Would you like to hear the one I’ve prepared for you? You can measure it according to the Curses you have cast and see how it holds up.” She knelt next to him and her voice softened. “You will live forever, Malferio, as the Faeries do, but you will never cross over to that other unknown land. You will wander Tian Xia, forever banished from the Realm of the Faeries. You will be spurned by all other beings, who will sense the Curse upon you and flee. Whatever you touch will burn you, from now and forever. Whatever you taste will be dust, from now and forever. All you look upon will be colourless shadow, full of dire threat, from now and forever. Every sound that reaches your ears will do so in a terrible clamour, grating, whining, from now and forever. Every smell that reaches your nose will be the most appalling, sickening stench it will reduce you to nausea, from now and forever. Whatever visions or dreams you see will be loaded with terror, from now and forever. You will have no friends, none will take pity on you, from now and forever. Malferio, I rob you of the power of Illusion. I rob you of the power of the Curse. I rob you of all your lesser powers, too, that you may live weakened and helpless, from now and forever. Such is your Curse.”

Her heart pounding, with rage or joy or grief – she could not tell – Nia unchained him and walked away quickly, without looking back once at the Faery collapsed at the edge of the churning sea.

~~~

Nell woke with the dizzying, horrible sense of not knowing where she was or how she had come to be there. This was followed quickly by a more actual vertigo when she pulled aside the curtains surrounding her soft bed, leaped out, and found herself atop a circle of stone soaring above shining cities nestled between mountains, forests and rivers and, far in the distance, the silver glint of the sea. She clutched the bedpost, reeling, her feet inches from the drop down to the glittering half-real Realm of the Faeries. The last thing she remembered was the pandemonium following Nia’s exit from the Festival of Light.
What are we going to do now?
She had asked Swarn. And she remembered the witch’s face, lined and fierce and somehow sad. Her half-smile as she said,
I think you’d best take a rest.
A quick motion, something stinging in her eyes. And now.

“What by the Ancients is going on?”

Charlie’s voice. She peered around the bedpost to see there were two more ridiculous four-poster beds atop the floating slab of stone. Charlie had gotten out of his and was staring around with a slightly sick expression rather like her own must have been just a moment ago. Ander groaned from within the third bed, waking up.

“Swarn did this to us,” said Nell.

“Lah, of course she did,” said Charlie ruefully. “How are we going to get down?”

“I dinnay fancy jumping,” said Nell, peering again at the long drop down to the beautiful miniature world. “Why would she do this, Charlie?”

“I spec she just wanted us safe and out of her way,” said Charlie. “While she took care of her own business, aye.”

“Lah, there’s a view to wake up to,” muttered Ander, emerging from his bed and not looking particularly surprised. “They must get bored, dinnay you think, living forever and knowing none of it is real? You’d get jaded prize quickly, I should think.”

“Swarn has gone to fight Nia,” Nell told him. She sat on the edge of her bed and buried her face in her hands. Charlie sat down next to her.

“She made a choice, aye,” said Ander. “We can nay like it, but it’s her battle.”

“She’ll lose it,” said Nell. “And there will be nobody left to help Eliza.”

The stone circle began to move lower, until they were floating among the green mountains. It carried them towards a large balcony carved out of the side of a mountain, with waterfalls running on either side of it, and settled down there. Jalo was waiting for them.

“I trust you slept well,” he began, but Nell cut him off.

“Did you know that Swarn had left?” she asked.

He nodded, taken aback. “She left after the ceremony, with her dragons.”

“So you just left us to sleep in some fancy prison?” she cried.

Jalo looked offended. “I couldn’t wake you. She had done something to you. She swore it was harmless and you would wake in the morning. I thought you would enjoy waking up to a view of our beautiful realm. It was no prison.”

“I’m sorry, lah,” said Nell, shaking her head. “Everything has gone wrong. We came here to get help, we had a
plan
, and now Swarn has gone running off to get killed and I dinnay know what to do.”

“Surely it is not your fight,” Jalo said soothingly.

“Of course it is,” said Charlie. “Once she kills Swarn, Eliza is next on her list.”

“And without the Mancers, Di Shang worlders will be prey to any Tian Xia monster that wants to cross over. There willnay be anywhere safe anymore,” added Ander.

Jalo looked from Nell to Charlie to Ander, and then said, “There is one place that is safe. The Faery Kingdom. In exchange for Malferio, the Sorceress has sworn by the Oath of the Ancients never to return here. The Oath is unbreakable. As long as you are here, you are safe. We can send emissaries to bring your friend here too. Nia will not be able to reach her.”

Nell thought about this for a long moment. “I dinnay know if Eliza would agree to hide,” she said at last, “but it’s her only chance.”

“Then it is done. You must not go.”

Nell shook her head. “I cannay just...abandon my family,” she said. “Eliza should come here to be safe from Nia, but there are people who need us.”

“Agreed,” said Ander immediately. “If it is to be the way it was during the long war, I know I’ll be needed. I would never let anything happen to your family, Nell.”

“And I may not be much good where Nia is concerned, but I can certainly protect people against your average Tian Xia beastie,” added Charlie.

Nell smiled tearfully at them. “Then we have a solid plan B,” she said.

“Good for us!” said Charlie. “What’s plan A?”

“We cannay give up on the worlds just yet,” she said. “Nia has been attacking her enemies one by one because she knows she cannay take them on all together. Swarn is nay dead yet, and praps the Mancers can still be helped. We
have
to convince the Faeries to help Swarn or to help break the spell on the Mancers. The Faeries are still our best chance.
Together
they’re far more powerful than Nia, nay?”

Jalo shook his head. “A deal has been made,” he said. “Peace has been struck with the Sorceress. We cannot fight her.”

“You dinnay have to,” insisted Nell. “You just have to...help her enemies a little. Please, Jalo. We need to speak to the new king.”

“You should forget these matters and stay here,” said Jalo again. “You will be made comfortable, I will see to it. You could be the first Engineer of the Faeries, teach us to build flying machines. If you want to bring your family also...”

Nell smiled ruefully. “I dinnay think your mother wants us here,” she interrupted him, refraining from adding that Tariro had tried to throw her off the dais the night before. Now that Swarn was not here to offer protection, she wanted to move somewhere safer as soon as possible.

Jalo flushed slightly and said nothing. She felt rather badly for raising what must be a thorny family issue. “It doesnay matter,” she said. “I’m asking
you
for help, Jalo. Please.”

He met her eyes and nodded firmly. “I will do whatever I can to help you,” he declared.

“We have to speak with the King. Our first plan is still a good one. We just need his approval.”

“He is newly crowned,” said Jalo, “and thus terribly busy...” He saw Nell’s face curve down into an angry frown and sighed. “I will try.”

“You’re the son of the Second Advisor now,” pointed out Charlie. “You must have some influence.”

“Yes,” said Jalo darkly. “I suppose I do.”

~~~

The King’s Castella was in uproar, with so many morrapi coming and going that from a distance it looked like a tiny castle in a snow globe. The vast household and many belongings of Emyr, the new King, were being transported in. The King was speaking with his two advisors in a pleasant pavilion in the Royal Gardens when Jalo arrived.

“It is a pleasure to see you, Jalo,” said Emyr, in a somewhat
too
Kingly way. “We have just been discussing your brother’s promotion!”

“Ah,” said Jalo, bewildered.

“Head of the new King’s Guard,” said Emyr brightly. “Splendid, eh? Of course, there will be a fine position for you, as well, should you wish it.”

He beamed at Nikias, who looked delighted and more than a little out of his depth.

“I thank you, Your Majesty,” said Jalo, bowing. “If I may...I have come to see you regarding an important matter. The peace that has been made with the Sorceress Nia.”

Emyr sighed. “We had no choice, Jalo. It is for the best.”

“The best for whom?” Jalo asked this rather heatedly, then calmed himself. “The Faeries too may find themselves reaping some of the chaos to come if Nia is not stopped. Though she herself may not enter this Realm again, there is no telling what an unbalanced world will lead to. The Warrior Witch is not strong enough to fight Nia alone, but with the help of the Faeries...”